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C++ vs Java in Android

I'm interesting in start a game development. I currently did some openGL in C++, but now I'm looking for the options that offers Android, and I have found people who developes his games using Native code (C++) and others that use Java...
So I don't really know which is the main difference. I read that many people has experience using C++ and prefers this one to don't have to learn new things using java... but I don't think this is the main reason.
What are the main differences developing a game using C++ or Java? Perfomance? Scalability? Posibilities?
Also, do you recommend to start the game development using OpenGL?

I would suggest using whichever language you are more comfortable with. A game is never a small project, and since you are new to the process (judging by this question) you will probably not be concerned with any performance differences or anything like that.
To answer your questions:
Performance
see C++ vs Java Performance, Android: Java, C or C++?, etc.
Possibilities
There is nothing inherit that C++ can do and Java can't, or vice versa when it comes to your goal.
Scalability
Not sure what you are asking with this one.

C++ can perform better than Java (don't believe the naysayers, do your own benchmarks), but there is more support for Java on Android. In the end it depends on how intensive your app is going to be and how much battery it is going to drain. If it is extremely intensive, go with C++ because you can do more with less. If it doesn't matter, then go with Java.

at the end it doesn't matter sense if you use c++ you will need to learn all those frameworks used for android development, if you use java you will learn java and openGL is the same in all languages so just go with c++ if you are a c++ developer
Also, do you recommend to start the game development using OpenGL?
you should not start with OpenGL not that you can't but I would sagest something like SFML witch will teach you a lot about graphics programming then you can move to OpenGL

GameDevelopment: (Java & OpenGL) or (C++ & OpenGL & SDL)? [closed]

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Since Java supports OpenGL, what is the best option for developing a game?
Java + OpenGL
C++ + SDL + OpenGL
I always avoided Java (in game development, of course) because of it's speed. But, I discovered that Java supports OpenGL. So, I think speed can't be the problem anymore. What should you choose? Are there remarks?
Java would be a lot easier for me, because of my experiences in Java and the garbage collector.

In my opinion, if you have an idea for a game in your head it doesn't matter what you write it with (at first), C/C++, Java, pen & paper... Pick the language you're more comfortable with, prototype and test your game idea, once you have a rough sketch and know what you need to do, throw the prototype out, design the gameplay & architecture and then start coding the actual thing. Don't optimize until after you've got most or all of the functionality working (in general, there's always minor bugs to hunt) and you actually see where the bottlenecks are.
I've seen it happen over and over again, game programmers are among the worst premature optimizers ever, trying to squeeze out a few cycles from something trivial, while missing the biggest bottlenecks and then optimize some more (in the wrong place). I've also found myself guilty of this many times. I'd say don't pick C++ (or Java for that matter) because of the speed, you can get very good performance out from both, if done "right". If need be, you can always switch to another language, if the language itself is really the bottleneck or really preventing you from doing something. Java isn't automatically slow and C++ isn't automatically fast, you can go (very) wrong with both. I used to root for C and C++ in everything, but after having worked with Java for quite a while, I really don't miss all the hassle that much.
There are lots of (already optimized and fairly easy to use) game engines available for both languages, so there's no need to roll your own... unless you really want to. In my experience, most hobbyist "game programmers" tend to be more interested in the technical side of things than in the actual game (myself included) ;) Once all the technical hurdles are done and you get that nice model/bunch of sprites/particle effects running with some shader-effects, the enthusiasm seems to fade away... But don't let me discourage you, game programming is very fun, even if you never actually finish anything (I wouldn't call any of my own projects finished).
I haven't coded any games for a while, but for C++ 2D SDL is a good candidate, other option could be SFML, or if you want a lower level touch with OpenGL, you could try going with GLFW + SOIL + some audio library. For full-blown 3D, I'd say try either OGRE or Irrlicht + Irrklang (there are probably loads of others too).
In Java, there's at least Slick2D, Golden T Game Engine and for lower level access, LWJGL (although I think you can access LWJGL via Slick2D also). For 3D, someone recommended jMonkeyEngine to me, but I've never tried it.

I would vote for C++ for the simple fact that you have a dependable destructor in your objects. This lets you wrap many of the OpenGL components (buffers, textures, etc.). You can know that when the object is created, the asset is allocated, and when the object is destroyed (or goes out of scope), the asset is cleaned up.
It certainly can be done in Java. Minecraft was made in Java, and it has pulled in over $25 million.

Java has been proven to be just as fast if not faster than C++, though granted, you don't achieve such results without a little parameter tweaking and careful monitoring of the garbage collector. If you want to pursue game design with Java, I'd say that's a good choice to make, provided you study up on how to approach it first.

I'd go with C++, SDL, and OpenGL.. SDL is getting revamped with 1.3 at the moment, and it will be really good. In my opinion you should do it in C++ as you have stated you would feel more comfortable with Java, being comfortable after making a game in C++ would be very beneficial. You would not only make a game, but learn more at the same time.

If you go down the Java route you may need to ship the JVM along with your game. That's not to say don't do it but many people may not have Java installed or not have a recent enough version for the features and performance that you want. I haven't looked into the licensing requirements for shipping the JVM but that's probably something you'll want to investigate before making the decision.
You should also be aware that when highly tuning an app that although the Java API is the same across platforms that there are differences because the implementations of those often use the underlying OS. So I doubt that using Java would reduce the test burden at all for a game.

It really depends on what language your most used to. There's a steeper learning curve with c++ than with java. If you not into none of the languages, and is eager to get some development done I would recommend java.
And a little side note. If you totally new I would also recommend looking at XNA, but it's based on DirectX. And you have to know some C#.

Well I've programmed all my games in SDL and I would definitely recommend using c++. Though you may want to look at SFML!
http://www.sfml-dev.org/
SFML is already integrated with OpenGL, and it's fairly easy to get up and running with game programming.

It really depends on what kind of games you want to build and which programming language your more comfortable with.
If your planning to make big games in the future , C++ is best for overall experience. Most commercial games are written in C/C++. Microsoft also has XNA framework which uses C#
Id still go with the programming language your more convenient with, they are both great
However, if you dont mind learning a bit more then go with C++

For improving my programming skills I want to follow "learn a new language a year". What we can learn in 2011

I want to learn a new programming language in 2011. I am a java progmrammer, with not more than a year experience. I want to learn something which is really new and exciting, but not related to mobiles (iPhone, Android, iPad, Symbian).

I would suggest that you should give Scala a try.Its a language which runs on JVM and it is very much like Java syntactically,so you can easily pick up.Python is another good option.

Learn Rich Internet Application development (RIA). This is "new and exciting", especially if you don't care about mobile stuff. This means (and both of these primary languages, C# and ActionScript, are similar enough to Java that you'll easily meet your 1 year goal):
Silverlight / WPF Language=C# and xaml (Microsoft has come a long way in a short time with this and the quality of the tools in comparison to what's out there for Java/Flex stuff is impressive.)
Adobe Flex Language=ActionScript and mxml (If you want to stay in Java this is probably your better choice. For the record, Java/Flex is my primary skill set and has been for years, but as I've said above, their .NET equals are very attractive nowadays and I'm starting to learn C#/WPF/Silverlight now as a result.)
(JavaFX perhaps also, but I've never used it and it's widely not considered as mature as the other two.)
Techs like these are very well suited to controlled environments such as the business world (internal intranets) where it's easy to push out Flash player or Silverlight to all workstations you need it on. (So it's nice on a resume if you're job seeking.) In the Internet world it's a little more iffy, but still not too bad since deployment rates for Flash 9+ are pretty good now, and Silverlights are quickly rising as well.
"AJAX" and all it's dependent "stuff" (DHTML, DOM, CSS, etc etc) is common, but I wouldn't consider it new or particularly exciting. It's a bigger deal in the mobile scene where a lot of hardware either can't run more advanced virtual machine environments or they're intentionally crippled in an attempt to prevent this (Apple products).

Google created a new language this year called "Go". You could give that a try.
From the Go home page:
The Go programming language is an open
source project to make programmers
more productive. Go is expressive,
concise, clean, and efficient. Its
concurrency mechanisms make it easy to
write programs that get the most out
of multicore and networked machines,
while its novel type system enables
flexible and modular program
construction. Go compiles quickly to
machine code yet has the convenience
of garbage collection and the power of
run-time reflection. It's a fast,
statically typed, compiled language
that feels like a dynamically typed,
interpreted language.
http://golang.org/

I want to learn something which is really new and exciting, but not related to mobiles (iPhone, Android, iPad, Symbian).
How about something completely esoteric and not very useful, such as a Turing tarpit language like brainf**k?

Have a look at nodejs!
http://nodejs.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodejs

If you want to explore some new stuff but still be close to java, start learning Scala. It's a great JVM-based language, almost as fast as java, but with tons of new features. It mixes object-oriented and functional programming. Functional programming is gaining more popularity now, because of scalability and concurrency, so it's better to stay close to it. You can also learn about concurrency in a more natural way with Scala.
If you want to go into web-development, Ruby and Rails is a good choice.

Learn D, and if you really like it, help make the compiler better! D has practically every single feature you can think of, and then some (you can read about it on the website, I won't list things here), and it's much more powerful than C++ in some ways (it certainly isn't less powerful in any way except--maybe--for the lack of multiple inheritance, which I personally don't like anyway). The only thing it really lacks right now is a good, bug-free compiler, but for the most part it's just purely amazing. Just look at its features and you'll see. :)

jQuery, what about platforms such as AJAX and MVC? Kind of depends on what you already know and which platforms you're targeting.

I find visual material much more appealing to learn from, like video tutorials, etc. But theres tons of stuff, like reading tons of blogs, or if u dont have the time, download the pod cast so you listen on your way work (which what I sometimes do).
Basically you have to be displined in making time to learn, and you will always be on top of most things.
Sk8tz

C vs. Java for game programming [closed]

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I understand that C++ is generally considered better than Java for games (at least larger-scale games). Why is this?
What is keeping Java from being competitive in this field? Which reasons against using Java for game programming have the most basis, and which ones are myths?
EDIT: Am a bit unfamiliar with C/C++, and did not think to differentiate between the two at line 1 >.<

The reason Java (and C#/.NET) is not a viable option for AAA titles at this point is the established game engines and their toolchains are written in C++. Game development is all about getting a title on the market in the shortest amount of time, and budgets don't allow for piddling in things like a new language/engine when several are already available, work well, and have an extensive set of editors and tools backing them.
Moving to Java (or C#) would also require a new performance-driven JVM (or CLI) across the big-3 (PC, X360, PS3) or big-5 (add Wii, iPhone). It's technically doable, but not financially viable.
Edit: Anyone with low-level knowledge of both virtual machines and the current state of game engines can tell you that a JVM or CLI could unquestionably be implemented with a new game engine to beat the performance of current C++ engines. The preventing factor is time and money, nothing more and nothing less.

High performance and the inertia of C and C++ traditionally being used for games.
Choosing based on performance isn't that big a priority unless you are making a 3D extravaganza.

Because:
Java is not compiled to native code, meaning that there is a performance hit the first time the code is run.
Java does not give you a predictable memory model (console games need this)
Java does not give you deterministic object finalization.
Java is not as close to the hardware as C is, an essential for a lot of professional 3D game programming.
Console programmers likely don't have a JVM that runs on the PS3, X-Box, etc.
Runtime performance penalties.
You will never be able to squeeze as much performance out of a Java app as you can with a C++ app.
There are probably more reasons, like the fact that they are using pre-existing code that was written in C or C++.
EDIT: As an aside, I don't think that many modern games are written in C. OOP lends itself to game development, and C++ is the de facto language of choice.
Also, I won't add it to my list, but as others have mentioned there is a lot of pre-existing code that works very well that is used in the game industry. It would not be practical to rewrite all/most of your tools just to switch to a new language especially when that switch could cause you a lot of headaches.

I would say, despite the other answers pointing to a lack in speed caused mainly by the JVM, that the real reason people don't code games in Java is the lack of support for environments such as DirectX and OpenGL (which actually remove the need for your code to be close to he hardware as it was suggested by some answers). They are the base frameworks that people generally use to code games, especially nowadays with 3D games being everywhere - and lack of support for them is the reason why Java is not considered as a language for game development.
To emphasize my point, I would suggest you take a look at Microsoft's XNA which is currently optimized for coding in C# via the .NET framework (which like Java is Just-In-Time-Compiled and doesn't run natively per se). The XNA framework interfaces with DirectX which talks to the hardware and so it is very fast.
EDIT
#Ed Swangren's comment made me realize yet another distinction between .NET vs Java when considered for game development. I think another strong point to .NET is that if you do need to be able to squeeze out that last bit of performance and do some pointer math or implement a sophisticated high-performance algorithm it's a lot easier thanks to the unsafe mode. Of course you can even go beyond that and write native libraries to be used by your C# code which is made pretty simple thanks to P/Invoke.

Leaving C(++) aside for the moment... I am inclined to say much of the reason is that Java lacks anything like XNA. What advantages does Java actually have over a language such as C++ when it comes to game development? You have to consider that several of it's typical advantages disappear for the specific area of game development, while C++ gains several.
XNA is what made C# a highly popular language for amateur game development, and contrary to common belief, a quite viable option for commercial development too. C#/.NET being a parallel to Java in so many ways (and arguably a better framework nowadays), when people now have the option for game development with a higher-level language, C# would seem like the much more appealing one, unless cross-platform support is essential (then again, we have Mono and OpenGL for .NET).
C (or rather, C++) has long been the language of game development due to their low-level nature (thus performance benefits) and the host of graphics frameworks (DirectX, OpenGL) and engines that primarily target them. It's usage is embedded in game development and been used virtually since the inception of the industry - and won't disappear any time soon, I suspect.

Java doesn't have as controllable performance
Its highly reversable so harder to protect
Many Games employ scripting languages like lua or python to get "higher" level programming
the API of most systems is C oriented.
Java can be used for back end server systems that games connect to
Flash games seems to of taken the niche Java games could have had.

Java can be optimized to be very fast, as is evident by an interview I had recently with a high-frequency trading company, where they do use Java, as well as C++.
Java has OpenGL bindings, as others have pointed out, so getting to the hardware isn't such a problem, esp since not all games need that, some commercial games have been written for Java3D.
You can use Scala or F# if you want some more performance for multi-threaded or numerically intensive operations, and just tie those in with the GUI.
But, as others have mentioned, the tools that are used tend to be written for C++, and some companies feel more comfortable doing some optimizations in assembly, but, given the fact that the new cpus are very complicated, with multicores, it is unlikely you will get any performance increase over the optimizations from the compilers, but, as long as companies feel these optimizations are still needed, they will stay with C++.
If some developers wanted to write commercial-grade tools for Java or .NET, there could be a market opportunity there, but it will be a great deal of work to make it as good as what is already out there.

I think C or C++ is a better language for building many types of games because it is closer to the hardware and likely to be the first language implemented on any new hardware. Not only that the libraries for accessing many of the advanced features of today's hardware are likely to be implemented in C.
Your typically general purpose higher level language has no easy way to access features of the hardware unless it uses some type of binding layer to call the libraries which are written in C.
For instance how do you write code to access a GPU, or write a custom Shader, or write code that run well on a Cell chip, or run on an Iphone, or on a Blackberry in a high level language. Even when these things are supported, they come out well after other people are able to write games in C that use these features in games.
One compromise you can make is to use a higher level language like Java for most things and C where its needed. You will limit the types of platforms you support though.
Java might also be good for client/server games where the server is written in Java.

It's very hard to write a program that runs in constant memory without garbage collection in Java.

If you want to read statements from game studios who are happy to use java for serious game development then search on twitter for #javaforgames
https://twitter.com/search?q=javaforgames
By studying the Java developers tweets conclude that Java is good for game development if you use it in combination with a high level game engine API such as libgdx and jmonkeyengine that both ease development effort and makes the game tuned to take advantage of the OpenGL/ES hardware acceleration provided by modern GPU hardware.
Java do allow cross-platform goals using said engines on mobile, console and desktop.
Some game developers prefer java for the design phase of the game to engineer in-house tooling.
Java game studios and developers who seek the best performance can archive it by tightly controlling OpenGL by using JOGL or LWJGL directly. Also performance and flexibility archive this by writing their own engine, if time and money allows it.

I wouldn't say that it is always true that C is better than Java for game programming.
For example, if you want to write a game client which can be hosted in a web page, Java could be better.
When writing games which produce amazing 3-D graphics (e.g., Halo on the X-box), usually there is barely enough computing speed to generate all the pixels for each frame. In this kind of game, C would be preferable to Java because it allows the programmer to write faster programs -- at a large expense in terms of difficulty in extracting that speed.

I think it's mostly because c lets developers squeeze every last little bit of performance out of hardware, whereas Java doesn't, it's not low level enough for things like high end 3d video renderers. Basically c lets you squeeze out a couple more frames per second in your next gen shooter.

Inertia mainly... Although it's a bit old now, you can look at Jake2 (which is a pure Java port of Quake 2 with jogl as the openGL lib).
It can perform up to 85% as fast as the C++ original, which means it's fine for most games; especially modern ones which are more social and game play based rather than the limited "hard core" games.
I'd also suggest that most of the answers you get here are coming from a gaming geek/"I want the coolest hardware and games". For [these] hard core 3D games and gamers, that final 15% is hugely important, as that's what separates the $150 graphics card from the $500 one they just bought.
As John Carmack is reported to have said (something along the lines of): "If I were to enter games programming now, I'd program for the iPhone". e.g. it's not nearly as much fun to make the fastest game with the best 3d engine as it is to make the best game.

The console game market is about 10X larger (financially) than the PC game market. For current generation consoles, all the major programming is in C or C++ with some little bits of intrinsics or assembler. If you want to be a professional Game Programmer and work at any major game company, then learn C and C++.
More to the point, all the commercial cross platform engines that are that starting points for many commercial games are in C or C++ right now as well.
You may be able to work on small games in java and flash or even casual Windows games in C#. You can even code C# for XNA games but if you want to make REAL (pressed on DVD) XBOX 360 games you need to learn C++.
Speaking as a game developer at WBGames Chicago. We would not hire a programmer who didn't have strong C++ skills. The same is true at every other game studio that I know of.

The short answer is because almost no gaming platforms support Java, or if they do there is a much better alternative.
On the game consoles, seasoned game developers are using C because that's what they've been doing for 20 years. There's no compelling reason for Java games to exist there.
On the desktop, there are a few Java games, but they can't compete with the market leaders such as World of Warcraft.
On the web, Applets are long dead, and if you're going to make a casual game it's going to be in Flash.
In the mobile space, JME has had it's time in the sun but it's on its way to obsolescence in the face of far superior platforms such as the iPhone.
The perfect world scenario for Java to be a heavy hitter in the gaming world would be for Sun/Oracle to deliver a gaming platform like the Wii or the iPhone - a must-have device that everybody owns. Then, there is a good reason for developers to invest time into experimenting with new technology. But given Sun and Oracle's apparent lack of interest in the consumer market, the chances of them making a gaming rig are slim to none.

It's not a technical issue but purely a "client optics" issue for this.
Good Java code can run just as fast as good C++ code. It can access OpenGL just as fast as native C++ via projects like LWJGL and JMonkeyEngine.
The real reason is that Sun never put any effort into highlighting Java for games and they've never made any deployment particularly easy for Java games. It's a LOT of work and effort of the developer / team to create a seamless / smooth installation (and launch?) experience for the player.
Customers just don't "trust" Java games and bail during the install process when they see the logo.

Although old, no one here seems to point out
All the games and apps on Android are programmed in Java
Because not only is Android written in Java, so are most all of its apps/games/etc...

I will answer in a very different way.
If Java can nevre write a device driver like C, how can you Imagine that it would be faster than the language that the driver is already written in ?

What's a good way to teach my son to program Java [closed]

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OK, so I've read through various posts about teaching beginner's to program, and there were some helpful things I will look at more closely. But what I want to know is whether there are any effective tools out there to teach a kid Java specifically?
I want to teach him Java specifically because (a) with my strong background in C I feel that's too complex, (b) Java is the other language I know extremely well and therefore I can assist meaningfully without needing to teach myself a new but (to me) useless language, and (c) I feel that managed languages are the future, and lastly (d) Java is one of the simplest of all the languages I know well (aside from basic).
I learned in basic, and I am open to teaching that first, but I am unaware of a decent free basic shell for Windows (though I haven't really searched, yet since it's not my first choice), and would anyway want to progress quickly to Java.
My son is 8, so that's a couple of years earlier than I started - but he has expressed an
interest in learning to program (possibly because I work from home a lot and he sees me programming all the time).
If no-one can suggest a tool designed for this purpose, I will probably start him off with text/console based apps to teach the basics, and then progress to GUI building.
Oh, one last thing, I am not a fan of IDE's (old school text editor type), so I would not be put off at all by a system that has him typing real code, and would likely prefer that to a toy drag/drop system.
EDIT: Just to clarify; I really am specifically after ways to teach him Java; there are already a good many posts with good answers for other language alternatives - but that's not what I am looking for here.
EDIT: What about Java frameworks for 2D video games - can anyone recommend any of them from personal experience? I like the idea of him starting with the mechanics in place (main game loop, scoring, etc) and adding the specifics for a game of his own imagining - that's what I did, though for me it was basic on a Commodore VIC-20 and a Sinclair ZX-81.

You may find some inspiration in this project:
Teaching Kids Programming: Even Younger Kids Can Learn Java
Java Programming for Kids, Parents and Grandparents.
You can find here at the faratasystems web site (direct link here)
Amongst the lessons learned during such a project, the author mentions:
Most of the programming tasks require minimal knowledge of arithmetic and algebra skills. To start programming, a kid needs to understand what x = y+2 means. Another important concept to understand is an if statement.
Kids develop the abstract reasoning abilities by the fourth-fifth grade, and they also easily perform such tasks as browsing the Web, downloading and installing software. Dave have learned how to type, compile and run Java programs in Eclipse IDE in no time.
Kids learn much faster than adults, but they do not have "previous programming experience", which may actually be a good thing, because they do not have to switch from a procedural to object-oriented way of thinking. After learning about inheritance, Dave called my wife a superclass.
Adults are responsible creatures, and they can keep doing boring operations much longer that kids. Programming lessons with kids have to be short. One or two 45-minute lessons per week is enough. High school kids should be able to study more, but I do not have such experience yet.
Illustrations help. In my book I've included lots of color cartoon-like characters that are like a Java-fabric softener.
Kids like to see immediate results and enjoy playing with shorter programs, for example a class Fish has a method dive(int howDeep). Let me try to call this method several times with different arguments...
Graphical programming is the most fun, and even a fairly large program like Calculator, Tic-Tac-Toe or Ping Pong can be explained to children.

Have you looked into BlueJ? I know you said you're leaning against IDE's but it is an IDE specifically geared towards teaching Java. Also it seems to have some things that an 8 year old might find cool like graphical representations of class structures.

I think Greenfoot is better than BlueJ, for 8-years old.
It is developed by the same people that made Bluej, but it is way more graphical, still allowing full Java programming of the applications.
http://www.greenfoot.org/getting-started/
1- download and install JDK
2- then download and install greenfoot, and you are ready to start
3- check out the nice and easy tutorial CrabWorld: http://www.greenfoot.org/scenarios/files/crab.zip
I recently used GreenFoot to discuss Java programming in a very short introductory course for high-school students at our university: http://aaue.dk/~av/brobygning2008-software/ (if it could be of any use).
If supporting Java is not a fundamental feature, you could also try MIT's scratch (a stand-alone version of squeak): http://scratch.mit.edu/
It is very good for starting, and I used it 2 months ago in a PR activity involving 2 13-years old. After less than 1 day of fiddling with scratch they made their own videogame:
http://aaue.dk/~av/personal.html (the "Damn" game, they called it like that :> )
but it is programmed in its own (visual) programming language...

Just make the learning fun and all the rest will follow !
Amazingly Scala might be the easiest language if you try Kojo
(Scala is better Java, you have access to all Java libraries of course)

I know its not java but a friend of mine homeschools his kids and he's using
alice - teaching programming in 3d

I know you asked for Java, but I am going to go out on a limb and suggest looking at the Ruby-based Shoes: http://shoooes.net/ and http://hackety.org/press/
I believe it was originally written as a teaching aid.
If I was a kid learning to program, this would interest me.

i would try python because
1) Python comes with a decent REPL - Idle .. rather than writing long files of code, javacing and then javaing it.. having your expression evaluated the moment you put it in might better suit the attention span of an eight-year old... u can still make functions and modules and stuff.. but in a more interactive environment
2) python does not have strict typing and allows you to play with dictionaries and variable-sized linked-lists with very little syntax.. that way.. you could teach him some of the big ideas behind programming first and leave learning lots of syntax for later when he is already very involved in this stuff
check out http://openbookproject.net//thinkCSpy/

I'd go for scheme. Anyway, take a look on this site, it has some Java and pedagogical resources: http://www.teach-scheme.org/

There is an interesting Google Tech Talk on Teching Kids to Code - it covers a piece of software called Greenfoot which is an introductory programming tool that uses Java. It uses drag-and-drop and other visual methods of interacting with classes.

I would not start a child with Java. Teach him something more conceptually clean first. Something like LISP, or Logo. Logo is a surprisingly powerful programming language, and it's a blast to learn since it's visually engaging right out of the box.

Find something that would be interesting to him as a project, particularly if you can work out a way of it not involving a GUI. I believe that GUIs help to get people interested, but they're fundamentally hard - trying to learn both a GUI framework and a language at the same time is too much, IMO. I like console programs - a short console program has everything right in front of you, so you can understand every single character relatively easily.
For instance, if he's interested in football you might have a text file with results in, and make a project which read in the data, worked out who had how many points etc.
EDIT: Another thing to think about based on VonC's point about "let's try ..." - perhaps start with an interactive language such as Groovy (which is very like Java) or find a "Java shell" of some description to allow your son to "explore" the language by executing things immediately.
I'll be very interested to watch this thread - I really want to teach my kids to program
in a few years, and I'd like to write an introductory C# book before then...

I randomly noticed today that Sun/Oracle has a page dedicated to young developers. I thought it might be a useful reference page.
It has links to BlueJ, Alice, and Greenfoot (all already discussed), as well as a couple of other resources.

I suggest "Programming Video Games For The Evil Genius" by Ian Cinnamon. The author was 15 at the time he wrote the book..... Anyway the book is relatively easy to follow and teaches you how to do some gamelike things with Java. Because let's be honest, most kids want to make video games. Back when I was 10 or so I was making Visual Basic programs that were text based adventure games. This dream of making video games sticks throughout high school. Anyway the book shows a lot that you can do with Java on that front.... Nevermind what a 29 year old would be doing with a book written by a 15 year old whistle. I was 28 when I bought it......
Anyway Java having so many libraries makes it fairly easy to get graphics up. Qbasic had sucky graphics but it had fairly simple calls to turn pixels on and off and draw lines and when I was 12 or 13 a lot of us would just make weird effects with the graphics in QBasic using loops, etc... While it was a complete waste of time, it further helped to strengthen the concepts of iteration, arrays, etc....
So anyway based on my experience and the experience of my friends who could program at the time, I'd say kids like bells and whistles graphic effects and to create video games. Even text games count. The fact that Java has tons of libraries that do a lot and free the programmer from the implementation details means that if Java was around when I was that young, I would probably have been tinkering with it. Add in a book written by a 15 year old on simple video games in Java (note he's not a normal 15 year old, the kid was a Sophomore at college at the time....so think Child Prodigy) and you have a recipe to hook your kids interest.
If Java's verbosity is too much to keep your kid's interest, try Python. I think I remember seeing a library for making 2d games there....... But at the very least it can probably make much better text adventure games than qbasic :)

Once you got your son started you can try CodeInvaders, competition can be very useful to get him thinking, maybe even father-son competition.
CodeInvaders # IBM

This question is similar to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/165905/how-and-when-do-you-teach-a-kid-to-code#165909.
My oldest is also 8 and I know he has the right brain for programming but he takes his time. I think you should keep the assignments small but they must have early results. Else they can get disapointed.